More than £60,000 has been awarded to 67 artists in the latest round of a-n bursaries which support Artist members to either devise their own schedule of professional development, or travel to develop networks and opportunities outside the UK.
Professional development bursaries totalling £38,660 have been awarded to 43 artists, while 24 artists receive Travel bursary awards totalling £22,782.
Artists could apply for awards of £500-£1,000, and competition for this year’s bursaries was particularly strong, with over 400 applications received.
Professional Development Bursaries
Sound artist James Wyness has been awarded £962 to support the professional development phase of an ambitious project investigating the creative sonification of climate change data.
The Scottish Borders-based artist will use the award to fund consultations with a digital media specialist, a team of climate change scientists, and an environmental artist/curator as he develops a new sound installation that will “enable people to feel the results of climate change by apprehending accessible sonic representations.”
“The work brings to fruition years of personal research and experimentation into the creative possibilities of sonifying scientific data,” explains Wyness. “Sound invites unique aesthetic and conceptual responses from an audience, heightening appreciation of underlying themes.
“I aim to work with the scientists to establish solid foundations for the work, and a chance to work closely with a programming and data specialist will develop my skills in the field of sound modelling, synthesis and programming to a much higher level than I could achieve on my own. Curatorial advice and assistance will help with context and towards my ultimate aim of establishing a fixed and permanent installation which responds to real-time data.”
Salisbury-based Linn O’Carroll has been awarded £1,000 to learn skills that will enable her to develop a new body of work combining found objects and materials such as threads, cardboard, paper and metal within concrete castings.
O’Carroll will train with innovative designer Leigh Cameron, whose practice seeks to radically change our perception of concrete as a material.
“For many years I have been experimenting with gesso, adding found materials to explore surface, incision, using printmaking techniques,” says O’Carroll. “But since 2014 I have had a fascination with concrete, cement, wire and found objects, and exploring how concrete is used in urban and rural settings.
“This bursary will enable me to take my practice into a new medium – a material that would offer huge development potential – and afford me time and space to create a new body of work, including the further development of my proposal, The Quite House, which I initiated in 2015 for the dynamite store on Priest’s Cove, Cape Cornwall, during my residency at the Brisons Veor workspace.”
The full list of a-n Artist members awarded Professional development bursaries is: Stella Adams-Schofield, Judith Alder, Lauren Alderslade, Helen Barff, Fabrizia Bazzo, Dovile Bertulyte, Sonia Boué, Madi Boyd, Thomas Bridge, Toni Buckby, Sophie Bullock, Victoria Burgher, Veronica Calarco, Myria Christophini, Ruth Collett, Mary Conway, Lucy Carolan, Philip Cornett, Lauren Curl, Mary Dalton, Monika Dutta, Karen Edwards, Simon Farid, Sarah Farmer, Matthew Gale, Victoria Gray, Lucy Harvey, Dot Howard, Ryan Hughes, Tabitha Moses, Jenni Main, Aidan Moesby, Laura Napier, Linn O’Carroll, Rosanne Robertson, Carly Seller, Leonie Stanton, Susan Stockwell, Leanne Vaughan-Philipps, Jack Welsh, Deiniol Williams, Mike Winnard, and James Wyness.
Travel Bursaries
Bristol-based Becca Rose will use her travel award of £1,000 to fund a residency at The Tinkering Studio, which is part of the Exploratorium museum of science, art and human perception in San Francisco, USA, and to further a creative collaboration with Berkeley-based computer scientist Natalie Freed.
Rose creates works at the intersection of folk art, storytelling, and creative technology. She says the residency will help to further develop a new multi-sensory digital storytelling platform called Bear Abouts, while working with Freed will enable the continued development of a number of creative projects exploring book arts and software.
“Bear Abouts combines paper pages and digital animations to tell interactive stories across physical and digital spaces,” she explains. “At Tinkering Studio, I will be supported by the resident curators to develop and produce work in response to the theme of ‘computation tinkering’.
“And a week spent working with Natalie Freed will culminate in an open session at the San Francisco Center for the Book and an opportunity to connect with new audiences.”
Martin Hamblen, who is based in Preston, has been awarded £800 to travel to Germany to visit artist-led studios, projects and exhibition spaces in cities that were all formerly part of the German Democratic Republic in order to “initiate new conversations, develop reciprocal relationships and demonstrate solidarity with other European artists”.
“The opportunity provided by this Travel bursary will enable me to seek alternative points of view from artists who are familiar with, either first hand or through their peers, a different political and economic model,” says Hamblen.
“Our system of art has an in-built bias to categorise artists on criteria other than their art work; maybe geography… maybe who they know. Through the filter of other European artists’ eyes I will be able to consider the circumstances of practising art in Preston, relative to my counterparts in other European cities, weigh up ways forward and contextualise my practice within a broader, bigger picture; a Euro-centric understanding of current contemporary art.”
The a-n Artist members awarded Travel bursaries are: Bram Arnold, Sophie Chamberlain, Sanna Charles, Sogol Mabadi, Marysa Dowling, Sean Millington, Emma Gregory, Martin Hamblen, Grace Harrison, Naomi Hart, Andy Hazell, Sarah Marsh, Deirdre Macleod, Jordan McKenzie, Jade Montserrat, Catherine Osterberg, Laurence Payot, Becca Rose, Niki Russell, Malik Nashad Sharpe, Hannah Rose Thomas, Danny Treacy, Aeneas Wilder, and Dawn Woolley.
Images:
1. Linn O’Carroll, Quiet House, silverpoint drawing on gesso, graphite, rust, 2014.
2. James Wyness. Photo: Alan Perris
3. Martin Hamblen, Youropean, 2016.
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a-n bursaries: 23 artists receive awards to attend Venice Biennale and Documenta
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Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth: next commission winners announced
